Woods' money drive is out of bounds

Greg Norman has come out in support of Tiger Woods' incipient rebellion against the moneybags US PGA Tour. The root issue, he says, is the routine exploitation by the tour of its megastars, a situation about which Norman says he knew alittle when he was the White Shark who was going to devour thelegacy of Jack Nicklaus and Arnie Palmer.

Greg Norman has come out in support of Tiger Woods' incipient rebellion against the moneybags US PGA Tour. The root issue, he says, is the routine exploitation by the tour of its megastars, a situation about which Norman says he knew alittle when he was the White Shark who was going to devour thelegacy of Jack Nicklaus and Arnie Palmer.

Norman says the game has changed utterly over the last 40 years, pointing out that "hundreds of millions of dollars are going across the table in corporate endorsements," and so much of it based on the appeal of a Woods.

"When I sat down to talk with the Tour about these issues, I got nowhere.

"It's very frustrating. You're forced to go public with this."

Norman is an agreeable fellow, but the years of living in a Florida mansion and flying his private jets may have created a certain detachment from common reality. Woods is many splendid things but, at 24, with sponsorships touching $200m (£140m) a year, a martyr is not one of them. The Tiger should have a word with Lee Trevino, who once hustled on a Dallas pitch and putt course while using a coke bottle for a club and used to launder his one set of clothes overnight in the cheapest available motel. No doubt there are big issues involved and Tiger and his advisers should by all means wrestle them to the floor. But what they should not do is imagine the public gives the smallest damn.